January 30, 2008

China’s shame. They are calling it “cleansing” – the same terror they impose during the “People’s” Congress, getting the “undesirables” off the streets; we all know the script. The undesirable in this instance is one of China’s most noble activists for human rights and AIDS, exactly the kind of person they should be calling a national hero.

Mr. Hu, 34, and his wife, Zeng Jinyan, are human rights advocates who spent much of 2006 restricted to their apartment in a complex with the unlikely name of Bo Bo Freedom City. She blogged about life under detention, while he videotaped a documentary titled ‘Prisoner in Freedom City.’ Their surreal existence seemed to reflect an official uncertainty about how, and whether, to shut them up.

That ended on Dec. 27. Mr. Hu was dragged away on charges of subverting state power while Ms. Zeng was bathing their newborn daughter, Qianci. Telephone and Internet connections to the apartment were severed. Mother and daughter are now under house arrest. Qianci, barely 2 months old, is probably the youngest political prisoner in China.

For human rights advocates and Chinese dissidents, Mr. Hu’s detention is the most telling example of what they describe as a broadening crackdown on dissent as Beijing prepares to play host to the Olympic Games in August. In recent months, several dissidents have been jailed, including a former factory worker in northeastern China who collected 10,000 signatures after posting an online petition titled ‘We Want Human Rights, Not the Olympics.’

There have been times when I regretted calling the CCP “the evil empire,” because things are never so black and white, not even in the current US administration. Governments are, after all, a multi-headed beast. But when I read this story and so many others like it I fervently believe they deserve the epithet. The supreme irony is they do this because they fear these “dissidents” will make them look bad. Do they honestly believe in the eyes of the world these arrests make them look good?

Obtuse, ham-fisted automatons who go into automatic pilot as soon as they perceive a threat. The formula is familiar: Lie, cover-up, arrest. One can only wonder, how can they possibly be so stupid? It’s the equivalent of shooting oneself in the head.

As I’ve learned, there are many delightful, humane and totally decent party members. They must be as sickened by this as the rest of us. Why aren’t they the ones who decide who should and should not be arrested? (A rhetorical question; I already know the answer.)

A lot of people/groups are planning to do just that – disrupt the competitions. We’ll see how the thugs react when the TV cameras of the world are pointing at them.

On principle, I’d hate to see the Games boycotted because politics should be separate from sports, culture, competitions of any kind, etc. But if I were one of the oppressed, I can see why the Games would be the perfect platform for getting out my message. One thing is for certain: it’s going to be an interesting summer.

The supreme irony is they do this because they fear these “dissidents” will make them look bad. Do they honestly believe in the eyes of the world these arrests make them look good?

I suppose that the old “automatons” don’t realise that the arrest of a dissident can become a bigger story than anything that the dissident said or wrote or did, especially if there’s an emotive “human interest” angle like a mother and baby under house arrest.

Richard said, “As I’ve learned, there are many delightful, humane and totally decent party members.”

Richard said, “There have been times when I regretted calling the CCP “the evil empire . . . I fervently believe they deserve the epithet.”

Richard said, “A lot of people/groups are planning to disrupt the competitions [Olympics]. We’ll see how the thugs [China] react when the TV cameras of the world are pointing at them.”

Richard said, “On principle, I’d hate to see the Games boycotted because politics should be separate from sports, culture, competitions of any kind, etc. But if I were one of the oppressed, I can see why the Games would be the perfect platform for getting out my message.”

Richard, you certainly know how to talk out of both sides of your mouth.

If you look at my words, I said the CCP is a multiheaded beast and cannot be described in mere black and white. When I look at America, I might find reason to think like ferins and see pure evil – and I could cite evidence. Just as I can cite evidence to see it as magnificent. Well, I don’t have much if any evidence to call the CCP magnificent, but certainly enough to call it contradictory, sometimes very bad, sometimes good, often merely mediocre.

I always talk from both sides of my mouth when I talk about them as a government. If we get down to specific people or divisions within the party, I might be more specific, less “on the one hand…” Like in the Bush administration, I would say Cheney has been a force of badness, while Colin Powell was mostly a decent fellow who didn’t feel it was his place to speak out and was taken for a ride (and thus contributed inexcusably to our current mess). But we can’t say the US government is simply good or evil. It is far more nuanced than that.

You were the one who called the Clintons “trailer park trash,” so I know you probably have a hard time seeing things in any other way than one-dimensional slogans that fit your beliefs. You did a really bad thing in the comment above – you ended my sentence you pasted with tri-dots, misleading the readers. Here is the entire sentence: “But when I read this story and so many others like it I fervently believe they deserve the epithet.” By selectively manipulating the sentence to make it seem I was saying I fervently believe the party is evil, you show us you have an agenda,as you did in the other thread, ending a quote in mid-sentence (and in that case not giving a link). .

Bottom line: I don’t think the Games should be used for politics. I can understand why the oppressed will want to take advantage of them. The CCP is not monolithically evil, but when I read stories like this I wonder. It’s not the CCP as a whole that can be called evil, but divisions and individuals within it. And aspects of it are pretty evil.

I didn’t have time to read the article, but anyone interested should watch “Prisoner in Freedom City,” a documentary by Hu Jia and his wife, portraying their life under house arrest. It is quite frustrating to watch, but it should be:http://tinyurl.com/2khtat

people like robert e are clearly distorting what you are saying and therefore are not worth responding to, as they are clearly either (a) disingeneous and looking to provoke or (b) stupid and don’t understand what you have written.

I had not heard of the baby thing. This seems like the ideal cause for a rights group, backed by a powerful PR agency, to champion. I can see the slogans and casual remarks to the case: Most politicians kiss babies. In China, they lock them up.

How come you call basic huamn rights ei, the right to certain truth, the right to not be tortured, the rights to not be terrorized, all these types of human basic, how can you label them ‘political’?

That is what I have to say.

You don’t seem to understand how people with consciences in China suffer. What is ‘political’ about standing up for human dignity and values? Isn’t this something the IOC creedo promotes?

The IOC said they gave China the Olympics based on some criteria they would be expected to meet. The criteria was based on whats good for people and helping push China to a civilised society, if just a bit. So the IOC and it’s stance on some kinda cultural values brought values into it from the get go.

The communist party wants the Olympics as a status symbol and a platform to show-off. All athletes are expected to thatk the communist party when they win stuff and tow the line, the CCP puts much of it’s propaganda efforts toward this event.

So the IOC presented the criteria of values, the CCP uses the Olympics for selfish pursuits and ignores and covers up it’s going against values, and the people of China who dare to think outside the propaganda are not happy about the whole mess. Why should they stay quiet any longer? They are violently opressed and treated like tools, garbage, manipulated and abused. You would think its ok to push these daring courageous and conscientious voices aside so you can enjoy only the most superficial sports entertainment? Thats what I dont get.

Snow, one question: What on earth are you talking about? I know how people here suffer. That is a primary theme of this blog.

The Olympic Games shouldn’t be about politics but sports. We should not have boycotted the Games in Russia over Afghanistan. Should everyone boycott America because we idiotically invaded Iraq? You can’t inject politics into everything. Every nation has something worth punishing it for, some more than others. The world would simply stop moving if we all chose to stop interacting with one another because of bad things governments do.

Yes, I know sports is sports, but there are values behind everything, even sports. Sport is very wholesome, it takes perseverance and dedication…

My point was that The IOC themselves have a certain constitution and their Olympics event is founded on a constitution including upholding certain standards of human justice and dignity. If there were no such values in our events and affairs, would life be of value? So I was wondering how you can pass off a courageous attempt to restore justice and dignity to a depraved society ‘politics’

I don’t really care HOW justice and dignity are restored to Chinese society, but there is a problem over there with speaking out. There is a huge risk in speaking out for good ideals in China.

If people who are terrorized into compliance with a gangster regime can feel safer in speaking out during the Olympics cause they think the world will pay more attention and hopefully help change things, then it might be that the Olympics this year will provide the greatest service to the world by letting these people be heard. I just was bothered that people could prioritize the superficial guys and girls moving about athletically over values and dignity.

How do we sleep when our beds are burning

How can you be pleased watching an event that you know is wielded by this regime in order to fool people? Because you do not accept the reality of the situation.

snow, already the Olympics have forced China to make some dramatic changes. They made a promise to the international media, which means that when the promise is broken by local officials its going to show up in newspapers and web sites around the world. Sure, they will put on a show and lie through their teeth, but the net effect of the Olympics is a positive one as China continues to grow up. Year by year there is progress, and some setbacks. This event forces China’s leaders to truly experience a great leap forward as everything they do, such as the Hu Jia story above, is put under a microscope. It’s China’s moment of truth, and luckily, thanks to articles like this, they may be embarrassed into progressing faster than they’d like.

As I said in the earlier comment, you can find good reasons for boycotting every host nation’s Olympics. You can claim each host nation is creating a fantasyland for the foreign media swarming in. Look at Hitler’s Olympics, when the Juden Verboten signs were quietly removed from the Berlin shops and parks. It’s nothing new. I think the Olympics is serving a good purpose by showing the world the real China, warts and all, and by putting intense pressure on China to improve. I am skeptical of China’s ability to do that and can see the Olympics backfiring on them catastrophically.

Whether the IOC was right in wrong in choosing Beijing as host city I can’t say. I can say, however, that at this late date the point is entirely moot. The Olympics will start in 6 months no matter what we say here; let the cards fall where they may.

snow, I have a feeling if you were to define these “universal human rights” by which the world is to be judged, it’d look very similar to your view of how human society should look. How convenient.

But perhaps, should the world boycott the United States until American citizens are free to visit prostitutes and smoke marijuana? Or until the United States gets the huge race discrepancy in its prison population down to a normal level? Or until the United States has a government that’s racially representative of its people? Or until the United States allows legal gay marriage?

Aren’t all of these basic issues of civic rights? Where’s your outrage?

On Hu Jia, I personally encourage *everyone* to read the very long conversation between Hu’s mother and his lawyer, hosted on one of Jingyan’s sites. (Not her own blog… a site by one of her ‘associates’? Whatever.)

The Western view of Hu Jia’s cat/mouse game with the Chinese government is so black-white, you lose all idea of shape and form. This discussion, on the other hand, is so human, so informed, so reasonable.. it helped me understand Hu Jia is as a person, rather than the “good and holy” caricature had previously been presented as in the Western media. And I think it’ll help others out there better understand the Chinese government.

When will the Western press, and how many of you knew, that Hu Jia’s mother remained a member of the Communist Party? That both she and Hu’s fellow activist are very optimistic about China’s future, and that they both believe things have improved dramatically over past decades? That they’re deep fans of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao?

The conversation is between Hu Jia’s mother and his activist-lawyer friend Li Jinsong. Li, by the way, is also a member of the Communist Party… yet another one of those things the Western press rarely seems to mention.

You call the detention an act of “evil”, richard. I think if you read Hu’s mother’s version of it… while she obviously grieves for her son, she clearly doesn’t see it in the same simple way you do.

Any arrest like this is an act of evil, even if his mother thinks it’s grand.

About his mother and lawyer being members of the CCP – I have said countless times here that many, many party members are exquisite people. I am friends with quite a few myself. Whether his friends and famiy are party members or not has nothing to do with the article cited. The party as a whole is not evil (or benevolent). What is evil is the mechanism that allows arrests without charges like this to take place, and those mechanisms are built into the self-preserving nature of the party. When I read stories like this, I recall the times when I saw the CCP as purely evil, in black and white terms; nowadays I am more careful. It’s only evil in certain respects.

Richard, those are good points abput the Olympics. However, I think you are missing a big chunk of info about China.

CCT, dude, members of the CCP? In a totalitarian state, what all do you think it means that one os a member of the party? I think it means that they are deceived, they are followers and they are victims of propaganda, so whoopee for Hu’s mum and I feel more sympathy for Hu since this situation of having his family members be delluded so, must be quite lonesome, hopefully not to the point the party intends, that the loneliness of having a conscience breaks him, drives him to become a tool like everyone else by wanting to be accepted and not to mention free from torture.

Forced brainwashing and deception, blocking information for selfservice of dictatorship, keeping people stupid, torturing people as a form of terrorizing them all, killing people who speak truth, using brutality to uphold gangster rule, lawlessness and the rule of INjustice enforced by sheer propaganda and evil mind manipulation and terror.

You want to know what I think of human rights? I think thoe things I just mentionned are NOT acceptable in the least cause it makes people into fearful, useless, beasts.

You don’t really need to work so hard to prove your ignorance. It’s already very obvious. You stand ready to accuse Hu Jia’s mom/lawyer of various crimes when you know absolutely nothing about them beyond the fact that they’re members of the Communist Party… I think that says much about you.

Richard, do you have an overseas email address? I can email the text of the article to you. Or, if you want, I’ll post it verbatim here… but be warned its a very long conversation.

Just as further follow-up… First off, I appreciate your willingness to accept new positions as new information comes in. Clearly, your experiences in China have given you a much more textured understanding of the country… and regardless of whether we agree on conclusions, I think this deeper level of understanding is wonderful.

What is evil is the mechanism that allows arrests without charges like this to take place, and those mechanisms are built into the self-preserving nature of the party.
This is where reading the article would be very useful. You speak of the “Party” as a monolithic creature, which sounds like a legacy of your past thought processes… by now, I’m sure by now you know better.

You speak of “arrest without charges”. If you read the article, you’ll see that Hu’s mother actually has a level of respect for the officer responsible for the arrest itself.

I didn’t accuse anyones mum of committing any crime. If you think I did, well, I didn’t…

Anyway, wheres the logic in trying to use Hu’s mom to validate something? Just cause she is his mum does not warrant her some knowledge or credibility.

She is a party member, she is living in China (indoctrinated nation), so thats two points against her credibility right there, especially in this particular circumstance.

i don’t read Chinese so I can’t read this conversation but it sounds to me that she is putting the party before justice and the survival of the party before human rights just like a good little tool would do for the party. So sad.

i can see the extremes boiling here.. but let me offer this. your conversation wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t an issue of infringement of human rights in china by the CCP – an ongoing and seemingly worsening situation (in the past few months anyway). i trust we can all agree on that point and hope that with the release of hu jia (the guy in prison, without a lawyer..) it will defuse. (not holding my breath..)

lately i’ve been seeing comment-ors on various sites juxtapose the US and china with regards to human rights etc. this is absurd. while the present state of the US democracy appears tattered (thanks to the current administration), i haven’t heard of many folks being dragged away from their families for posting issues regarding the under-privileged on blogspot. please spare us – especially if you’re not residing behind the ‘great fire-wall’.

for what it’s worth, i don’t believe china has acted in the true spirit of the olympics nor improved its record according to the IOC agreement. but i often ask myself (you might wanna do it as well), “doesn’t the IOC know this?”. is it simply too much trouble; or embarrassment; or rather, not profitable enough to reappraise the event considering what’s been going on here? unfortunately the records of this organisation leave much to be desired if you delve further. i live in a city that will host the olympic regatta, and its people (not the civil servants being driven around in audi A6′s), have suffered acute spikes in pollution, inflation, wildly secretive and nefarious real-estate speculation, as well as your every-day garden variety corruption and intimidation. all that without even delving into anyone’s right to speak out – something that is out of the question if you need to carry on a life here in any case.

personally, i’m quite fed up, not of the aforementioned citizens but to its central bureaucrats, after an adventurous 5 1/2 year stretch living and working in the middle kingdom. despite the ongoing debates on just how evil the CCP is, along with the (unfair) comparisons of them to western dictatorships, they unquestionably have quite a way to go. hec, the internet alone in the past year has choked to the point where even a web-savvy expat is hard-pressed to be able to read a blog (virtually all western-hosted services are blocked), view pix (flickr is inaccessible most times), watch the bbc, or work online, as is the case for myself part of the time. and sadly, none of this compares to the anguish of the hu jia’s and shi tao’s of this country. i need to find a new home..

Si, Thats why I like the blog comments style, cause you can ask questions to other commentors and you can disagree and work things out if you have a big enough interest and if you actually want to learn and know more.

So, as I might be wrong and you might have the more accurate perspective on this, I will explain why I said those comments in question…

“She is a party member, she is living in China (indoctrinated nation), so thats two points against her credibility right there”

To really sum up my reasonning….: Party members are to varrying degrees indoctrinated with the primary principle that the party is like the peoples mother or the sun or represents them or IS China. There are a lot of people who dont really think that way about the party, but at the same time, they are so brainwashed that they still act this way. Sometimes it is because they are just afraid to take a different stance (I’m sure you know about torture threats etc.) Taking a different stance from the party line in China will get you in big shit (if you don’t believe that well, we’ll have to chat about that some time). You know that values are wiped out pretty much and replaced by the survival of the party. Good and bad are replaced with whats good for the party and whats bad for the party. i have heard some Chinese people say very sencerely that it is RIGHT to go against you conscience if it is what the party requires, ie, no sense of pure justice, only the backward party culture abricated by intensive systematic indoctrination.

“i don’t read Chinese so I can’t read this conversation but it sounds to me….”

If I am wrong (CCT, or anyone else), please let me know…

I said that because: From what I know, Mr. Hu did nothing wrong (well I’m sure he is not 100% perfect, but I don’t think he abstructed justice…)

I get the impression that CCT is coming from the same type of mentality of a party member or at least brainwashed and is promoting this brainwashed perspective here. He is trying to say that the mother is right and trying to use the logic that she is right BECAUSE she is his mother and that makes no sense. I know the party mentality in China can easily be much stronger than any family bond or any human logic.

The fact that CCT is promoting this to say that the party is ‘understandable’ in persecuting this guy, has given me the impression that the mother is as brainwashed as he is.

One last thing, the second point against her credibilty, she lives in China

Living in China, especially for ones whole life or large portion, unfortunately means (unless you are very savy/aware, courageous beyond human) that you are missing huge portions of information about China’s communist party. Do you think those info blocks are for no reason? Do you think that the party spends all its time fooling people just for fun? No, it genuinely keeps people within a certain frame of mind. If you are missing a lot of info and you are indoctrinated with fabrications, you will be a victim of mind manipulation. And that does nothing for a persons credibility.

Si, did you read the Christian science monitor article thing? What do you think happens to someones credibility when all he is exposed to is stuff like that, even stuff that is written one way and doctored to say the opposite, that is major mind manipulation and creates a false reality a la North Korea. As long as the CCP can keep people in the dark about its using Chinese people as mere tools, it will survive. But if they catch on and realize that they are being manipulated to the very core, that would be AWESOME!.

I too have a pretty good outlook about China’s future because I think people WILL somehow, someday access information that the party is desperately hiding, and if there is any hope left in peoples souls then they will take back their dignity and the right to their own minds.

Freedom to think what you think, thats the fundamental human right that I usually think of when it comes to China. People believe different things, communism, Catholic, all sorts. The problem is that people never had the choice whether to believe in the CCP or not, they really never had the choice, it was support us or be horribly tortured spychologically, physically and throughout generations of loved ones. Remember the let 100 (?) schools of thought/ let (#) flowers bloom campaign where Mao pretended to let people be free to think at some big conferences and he used the perceived freedom to trap people into “admitting’ their “anti-party’ sentiments. He labelled all of those people and denounced them, soo soo horrible.

they fear their own illigitimacy and therefore cannot let freedom of thought happen in China. Some people say CCP has improved this or that but what are you without freedom of thought? How can one live? How can you call yourself Chinese without freedom of thought!? Don’t tell me that people in China have this freedom. While the party controls strictly the ‘information’ people absorb, they are not letting people think.

i read your comments with interest. i want to apologise now if i sound somewhat patronising but, i have to say, you come across as somewhat naive.

“How come you call basic huamn rights ei, the right to certain truth, the right to not be tortured, the rights to not be terrorized, all these types of human basic, how can you label them ‘political’?” for example.

richard can label these political because they are. human rights can be broadly divided into two sections: political rights and social rights. political rights encompass the ability to act politically – ie freedom speech, assembly, voting in free and fair elections etc etc. social rights encompass the ability to ensure standard of living ie the right to education, healthcare, unemployment benefit etc etc. much of the argument is which should have primacy. many would argue (such as the ccp) that it is social rights that are the most important and that as long as the ccp can raise living standards they are justified in their hold on power. others (such as most us politicans) would argue that the most important is to set up a framework in which people acting freely individually or in groups can raise their own living standards. that, in a nutshell, is the argument.

regarding your comments on the ccp members and ccp information control leads me to suspect that you have never been to china. unfortunately i have nothing to offer but the ancedotal but from my years in china and my conversations with chinese people i am sure that not all chinese people are soulless automatons who meekly accept what they are told. if they take a different view from the party line….well, it depends what view they take on what and how they express it.

as for brainwashing, the ironic thing is that both you and the ccp share the same negative view of humanity that people can easily be controlled and will accept what they are told. you both believe people need leading into the light of the ultimate truth as you see it.

in short, i think your heart is in the right place, but you don’t really know what you are talking about.

What does “political” mean? And what does a persons ‘right’ not to be arbitrarily threatened and tortured have to do with “politics”

Have you read 1984? The people in that scenario were fed lies as I remember, to the point that they were living in a false reality. I do not think it is because they ACCEPTED the lies that they were brainwashed but because lies were the only things available so they couldn’t know the truth even if they wanted to. They were prevented and they knew they were in big trouble if they deviated from the ‘normal’ set behaviour.. Maybe they didn’t want to accept living in a fabricated totalitarian state, but they probly just chose to go that way instead of risking the punishment.

I am not talking about Truth, I am talking about facts, basic stuff that the CCP blocks the Chinese people, and to a lesser but significant degree, people in general from knowing.

I’m not calling the people stupid and stuff, I am just saying that with the power of the systematic indoctrination imposed from all facets of the totalitarian regime, it ends up having a mind manipulating effect on the people.

What the CCP has done to fool people is all up for discussion between us for even Westerners do not get it. That’s ‘normal’ under the circumstance that the party put so much effort in this people-fooling direction.

Are you aware of the full-throttle campaign of deception and indoctrination that the CCP has been carrying out for 50 years in China and abroad? I don’t think most people are. I try to explain it but sometimes I don’t write very well and don’t explain the facts clearly.

“What does “political” mean? And what does a persons ‘right’ not to be arbitrarily threatened and tortured have to do with “politics”"

politics is, according to dictionary.com, “The art or science of government or governing, especially the governing of a political entity, such as a nation, and the administration and control of its internal and external affairs.” human rights is therefore central to politics as their inclusion or absence will be the necessary business of any government.

i don’t think china is 1984, the comparison is ott. the ccp doesn’t watch its citizens that carefully and imho lacks the ability to do so.

as someone who has taught in and studied chinese education, i feel i have a pretty good understanding of how the system works. havin gread some of their textbooks, i am well aware of the lies they are told.

i want to finish with an ancedote. i was having lunch with a student when he brought up this subject. i asked him how he first knew that the ccp was lying to him. he smiled and said “their lies are so ridiculous it was obvious it was fake”

I can dissect the anatomy of the CCP’s mind control here if you want. Just let me know if you will read it cause I think its only you and me participating in this discussion. I do agree that the lying is blatant, but the truth is not to be found, not very easily, thats for sure, even outside of China. Maybe you didn’t know about this aspect of their lying.

About politics, I disagree because the right not to be arbitrarily tortured and the right to not be brainwashed by evil goons is supreme to and concept of governance. I dont think that a politician can make those kinds of calls about whether or not it is their agenda to do these kinds of things. Human rights as I see it is a social category of its own that says that there are certain ways people CANNOT be treated, no matter the government policy and that is supreme to politics, its the foundation of humanity and values which is different than governance, as I see it.

[...] an ongoing topic here for many years. But usually these are isolated instances. Shi Tao. Zhao Yan. Hu JIa. Aside from the typical pre-party congress and pre-Tiananmen anniversary sweeps, we don’t [...]

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A peculiar hybrid of personal journal, dilettantish punditry, pseudo-philosophy and much more, from an Accidental Expat who has made his way from Hong Kong to Beijing to Taipei and finally back to Beijing for reasons that are still not entirely clear to him…